Jack Kevorkian's archives of papers, video and audio files – much of it dealing with his work on assisted suicides that earned him the nickname "Dr. Death" and eight years in prison – is being made available to the public, now that five states have legalized much of what he had been doing.

Kevorkian stirred controversy in the 1990s by assisting in the suicides of more than 100 terminally-ill patients, reported UPI in October when the archives were opened at the University of Michigan. He was acquitted on three different occasions in cases related to assisting patients with suicide.

He was eventually convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 in Oakland County Circuit Court in Michigan and served eight years in prison, said The New York Times. He died in 2011 at age 83.

"Long before Jack Kevorkian was known as 'Dr. Death,' he was a child of Armenian immigrants, a successful student, a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, a musician, composer and scientist," said Terrence McDonald, director of the Bentley Historical Library, in a news release on the archives.

"The release of his papers will allow scholars and students to understand the context of and driving forces in an interesting and provocative life," McDonald added.

The library said Kevorkian's niece Ava Janus donated the materials, spanning from 1911 to 2014.

Kevorkian used the term "medicide" to refer to assisted suicides and it can be found throughout his files dealing with more than 100 terminally-ill patients from 1990 to 1998, according to the library.

"Many of the medicide patients and their families – who remain very close to this day –are still advocates of their family member's choice to die, so anonymity was not an issue," said Olga Virakhovskaya, Bentley's lead archivist who processed the materials.

"We felt very strongly that by not providing access to this collection and to the medicide files, we would be choosing to hide a very important story."

In October, California became the fifth state that allows doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients, said the Times. California joined Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont in allowing the practice.

Jack Kevorkian's archives of papers, video and audio files – much of it dealing with his work on assisted suicides that earned him the nickname "Dr. Death" and eight years in prison – is being made available to the public, now that five states have legalized much of what he had been doing.